Vogue’s Fashion For Every Figure Issue

This week, Vogue‘s Shape issue, which touts “fashion for every figure,” has me pissed.

First off, there’s no way in hell that this magazine represents women of all shapes. The evidence is right there on the cover: above the Shape Issue: Fashion for Every Figure, from size 0 to 20 copy, I see NIP/TUCK: Designing a Perfect Body. And towards the bottom of the cover: Work It! Longer Legs, Leaner Lines, Sexier Silhouette. Because apparently only long legs and lean lines are sexy. Fuck that.

But the real misogynistic fodder is on the inside, in the Laid Bare spread (again with the long legs obsession: sky-high heels in leg-lengthening flesh tones are a revelation – really? A revelation? Because I think we’ve been seeing long, thin limbs in magazines for quite some time, and they’re certainly not missing from this issue). Pics from the spread after the jump.

What do these photos have in common? A superthin white model surrounded by vinyl material that looks suspiciously like a body bag.

Of course, we see this all the time, so maybe we’re supposed to be used to it by now. But I still think there’s something fucked up about the death = sexy equation. What’s so alluring about those cold bodies? My guess is that it’s part of the scheme to keep women quiet – when we’re busy crafting pallid, listless versions of ourselves to woo the masses and “fit in,” we won’t have the energy to make some noise and call out all the sexist bullshit in our patriarchal society. Spreads that fetishize death and violence against women make it acceptable for people to assault, rape, and murder women. When dead women are the epitome of sex appeal, killing women becomes something sexy. And when the majority of models used in these tasteless shots are white, violence against women and girls of color becomes invisible.

wow–that last image is just–what were they thinking??? so let’s see: dead woman, check. disembodied legs, check. all right, we got misogyny!
i generally stay away from magazines, not that that solves the greater problem, but it’s better for my blood pressure.